52 clubs have changed manager since summer 2024. But what of Arsenal?

Leaving aside temporary appointments, Arsenal have had 20 managers during its time as a professional club.  By comparison, Tottenham have had around 40, although it is sometimes hard to tell which ones were temporary ande which were supposed to be permanent but were quickly moved on.

Indeed, over half of the clubs in the top four divisions in England have changed their manager since the end of the 2023/24 season.   52 out of 94 in fact.  Three of those clubs are currently in the Premier League (Nottingham Forest, West Ham, and Wolverhampton)  and one was in the Premier League but has since left (Southampton).

And as we have often noted before, there is very limited evidence to say that the incoming manager will do better.  It can happen (and of course Arsenal is a clear indication of this) but (again as with Arsenal) it can take time.

Arteta’s season, taking over from Emery, and his first full season,l each ended with Arsenal finishing 8th in the league and cries among some “fans” for the manager to go.

Leaving aside those managers who were appointed in the 19th century when tenures tended to be very short, and those who were noted at the time of appointment as a “temporary manager,” the shortest term served by an Arsenal manager was Bruce Rioch, who ran the club for 47 games between 1995 and 1996.   

The next shortest was Unai Emery who lasted 78 matches, and who was dismissed not just because results were poor but because of his utterly disastrous transfer policy, which wasted huge amounts of money that could have been used on players who could make an impact.

Mikel Arteta is currently Arsenal’s eighth longest serving manager having been in charge for 306 days.  Ahead of him in the time rankings are George Morrell, Herbert Chapman, Terry Neill, Tom Whittaker, George Graham, Bertie Mee, and Arsène Wenger.

The longest serving manager who never won a trophy with Arsenal was George Morrell, who managed the club from 1908 to 1915, and who was the only Arsenal manager to have taken Arsenal down to the second tier.  After managing Arsenal, he is not reported to have overseen any English club but did manage Third Lanark for a while; a club that no longer exists, to the best of my knowledge.

In terms of success at Arsenal, the manager with the most major trophies was Arsene Wenger with three league titles and seven FA Cup wins.  George Graham won two league titles, one FA Cup, two League Cups, and the Cup Winners’ Cup

Of course, in earlier times there were no European trophies to go for, but it is notable that both Tom Whittaker and Herbert Chapman each won the 1st division twice and the FA Cup once – these being the only competitions available to the club.

Mikel Arteta is our eighth-longest serving manager of all time, although in the coming weeks, he will overtake George Morrell, who managed the club for 309 games up to the cessation of league football in 1915 during the First World War.

But he will have to stay another three seasons to overtake Herbert Chapman, who oversaw 411 matches.   At the time of his passing, Chapman had delivered the FA Cup and two league titles to Arsenal, with a third title coming at the end of the season in which Chapman died.

But although Arteta is behind Chapman in terms of trophies, the league results under Arteta are considerably superior overall to those of Chapman.  Under Chapman, Arsenal won 49.64% of their games.  Under Arteta, at this moment, the winning percentage is 59.80%

Only three managers who have exceeded Arteta’s winning percentage.  One was Joe Shaw who was the manager in 1934 for 23 games after Herbert Chapman passed away during the season.   He took Arsenal to the title, but then immediately returned to his previous job as manager of the reserve team.

In 1898 Arsenal had a manager whose name is now lost to the archives, but who oversaw nine games of which the club won six, giving the club a win percentage of 66.6%.   And finally, we have Pat Rice, who was in temporary charge in 1996 before Wenger arrived.   He managed the club for four games, of which three were won, and I can well remember suggesting to my pal Roger that the club would give him the job of manager and tell Wenger to stay where he was.   

Ah well, one can’t get every prediction right.